Garage door cable repair
The lift cables turn the spring's force into movement. When one fails the door goes crooked immediately — one side drops, the other stays up, and the whole thing binds in the track.
Typical cost
$175 – $380
replacement of the pair, plus re-tracking where needed
Time on site
60 – 90 minutes on site
Cables fray before they snap
Cable is steel strand, and it fails by fraying rather than parting cleanly. The fraying starts where the cable wraps the drum or passes a pulley — exactly the places you cannot see from the driveway. By the time a loose strand is visible, the cable is well through its life.
The tell we look for is where it started. Fraying at the drum usually means the drum is worn too, and fitting a fresh cable to a chewed drum buys months instead of years.
Stop running the door now
A door working on one cable is pulling itself out of square. Every cycle from here bends track, chews rollers and can crease a panel. Cable replacement is a moderate repair; a bent track plus a creased panel is a much larger one.
This is the clearest case on our whole price list where waiting makes the bill bigger.
Questions about cable repair
Can you replace only the broken cable?
We replace both. They are the same age with the same wear, and a mismatched pair pulls the door out of square.
The door is crooked but the cables look fine.
Then it is a roller that jumped the track or a drum that slipped on the shaft. Both present identically and both fall under our off-track repair.
Need cable repair today?
You get the range on the phone before a truck leaves the shop.